Midwest flood price tag $8 billion; Extreme Weather magazine review

The American Farm Bureau, a lobbying group that represents American farmers, estimated yesterday that crop damage from the Midwest's Flood of 2008 has amounted to $7 billion. More than half of this total--$4 billion--was in Iowa. Other states taking a hit from excessive wetness and flooding were: Illinois, $1.3 billion; Missouri, $900 million; Indiana, $500 million; Nebraska $500 million; and an additional $1 billion in remaining wet states. When added to the at least $1 billion in property damage the floods wrought (including $762 million in Cedar Rapids, Iowa), the $8 billion price tag of the Midwest Flood of 2008 ranks as the second most expensive U.S. non-hurricane flooding disaster on record. America's worst flood, the Midwest Flood of 1993, caused $26.7 billion in damage (adjusted to 2007 dollars).

The damage will continue to rise in coming days, as major flooding continues along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. A levee broke along the Mississippi just north of St. Louis this morning, sending flood waters towards the small town of Winfield. Heavy rains in excess of five inches have hit much of northern Missouri this week (Figure 1), and NOAA's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center is forecasting a high probability of heavy rain in the region today through Saturday morning. The culprit is a slow-moving low pressure system over Minnesota, which will drag a cold front through Missouri tonight. An additional 2-4 inches of rain will fall in some areas along the front. The additional rain should keep the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in Missouri above flood stage for an extra day or two. Currently, these rivers are expected to reach their highest crests sometime between Monday June 30 and Wednesday July 2. The forecast looks somewhat drier for the Midwest next week, thankfully. The jet stream has regularly been taking a major dip southward into the Central U.S. the past two months, putting the favored track for rainy low pressure systems over the Midwest. The jet often gets "stuck" in a high-amplitude trough-ridge pattern which causes drought in one part of the country (California in this case) and floods in another. This "stuckness" often lasts for 3 months. The current 2-week forecast from the GFS and ECMWF models predicts a continuation of the "stuck" jet stream pattern, but decreasing in amplitude and sliding more to the east. This should result in the favored storm track moving more towards the East Coast, relieving flooding in the Midwest.

Figure 1. Precipitation for the 7 days ending on Friday, June 27, at 8am EDT. Image credit:NOAA.

Review of the new magazine, Extreme WeatherA beautiful new weather magazine called Extreme Weather has hit the bookstores this month. Published by Astronomy magazine, the new magazine features some truly spectacular weather photos, including a 12-page "Weathergallery" with awesome shots of tornadoes, lightning, floods, supercells, hail, hurricane winds, and waterspouts. The first article of the magazine features the equally fantastic photos of storm chaser Warren Faidley, who also happens to be the best writer among professional storm chasers, in my opinion. Additional articles in Extreme Weather include a balanced and interesting look at the hurricanes/global warming connection, plus some quality articles on dust storms, super cell thunderstorms, lightning, and the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

Extreme Weather is not yet a regular publication; the editors are gauging interest to see if they wish to make it so. I whole-heartedly encourage them to do so--this magazine rocks! You can order a copy at their website, it's $7.95.

TropicsIt's quiet in the tropical Atlantic. There are no threat areas to discuss, and none of the models are forecasting tropical storm formation in the next seven days.

Iowa Flooding - Palo Iowa - The entire town of Palo Iowa was evacuated and was told to abandon due to flooding during the recent flooding of the the Cedar River and local water ways. During it's abandonment it was under military control. A week later the towns folk were allowed to re-enter their town to assess damage and begin clean-up. The town was devasted as you can see. Due to the fact the entire town was under water, their have been no coordinated efforts for donations, volunteer work, etc... plus, they've just been allowed back into their town and only during daytime hours. I'm sure they could use all the help they could get.

Wondering what in the world is going why the E-pac is now producing almost 3 TC'S well here is a small graphic showing what a favorable MJO can do as far as provide that extra spark meaning upward motion for tropical cyclone formation.As the favorable MJO moves into the GOM/Caribbean look for chances of development to go up in the first 2 weeks of july.

Shear can be expected to relax in the Eastern Atlantic with the development and expansion of a Sub Equatorial Ridge over the Cape Verde Islands and the weakening of the double barrel high pressure system in the South Hemisphere. Shear in the Caribbean should stay on the unfavorable side for the immediate future, according to the GFS forecast.

I was researching some dates of CV Storms and the majority of them form during the first half of September, while a few have formed at the end of August. So, this could be a fairly rare event for a CV Hurricane to form this early in the season- especially if it happens to affect land.

1433. pearlandaggie 9:15 PM GMT on June 29, 2008 JLPR...that's awfully interesting, isn't it? my understanding has always been that high TCHP is required for rapid intensification, but low TCHP doesn't necessarily preclude formation. but, i could be wrong....

Again the misconception of the TCHP. TCHP gives you an idea of how fast a storm will intensify it does not necessarily dictate to how strong a storm can become. Category 5 hurricanes can be maintain in mid to upper 80 degree waters. Waters rarely get above 90 degrees due to the ocean thermostat. As long the as Sea-Surface temperatures are above 26C a warm-core system can develop.

JLPR...that's awfully interesting, isn't it? my understanding has always been that high TCHP is required for rapid intensification, but low TCHP doesn't necessarily preclude formation. but, i could be wrong....

if it was split into, look for signs of a lightening strike, should be obvious....or it was the wind and one side of the tree was heavier than the other and the tree being 200 years old finally.....snapped....was it shapped like a sling shot sorta? My grandmother had a tree that grew kinda like a slingshot, and finally it got so big and that it snapped into.

1426. presslord 4:08 PM EST on June 29, 2008 okay...for all you experts...I'm curious about what just happened at my house...thunder, lightening for about 30 mins..then instant downpour...and my oak tree gets vaporized...not blown over..more like split down the middle...I'm pretty sure it wasn't lightening...a couple other things blown around in the yard...no other damage anywhere near here...so..Was most likely it: a.) tornadic activity overhead...or b.) some sort of random downburst....????

man, press, i wish i could help ya. seems to me like tornadic activity, but with nothing else getting damaged, i don't really know. when i lived in Dallas, my neighbor lost a tree during a downpour...the tree looked like it had been simply pushed over.

okay...for all you experts...I'm curious about what just happened at my house...thunder, lightening for about 30 mins..then instant downpour...and my oak tree gets vaporized...not blown over..more like split down the middle...I'm pretty sure it wasn't lightening...a couple other things blown around in the yard...no other damage anywhere near here...so..Was most likely it: a.) tornadic activity overhead...or b.) some sort of random downburst....????

press, do you have a fireplace or a really BIGA$$ barbeque pit? couldn't you use some of the wood for those? if not, you might be able to sell some of the wood to offset your expenses. oak is in high demand here in texas for fireplaces and barbeques.

now, press, that would be too easy, wouldn't it? LOL...by the way, sorry to hear about your tree...that really sux! i hate seeing old trees reach the end of the line, even if there's nothing we could do about it.